Farewell India...

As we have learned on this trip, all things are impermanent, including this trip itself. The end is here, or if you like, a new beginning. The traveling twosome have gone their separate ways; Max to continue his travels in Thailand, and Eli is headed back to the good ol' USA.  We have had the time of our lives on this trip and learned an enormous amount about the world, and ourselves. We also want to thank you for reading our somewhat inane and ridiculous updates. There will be some more posts coming (including an extensive photo gallery) but this is the last update from the subcontinent.  Good bye India, we hardly knew ye...

Looking sharp...

Getting cleaned up for Thailand

Shooting stuff on the streets of Kolkata

V.I.P.-assana

The Bangalore Vipassana Meditation Retreat Center: our home for 12 days

Ok, so this is one of the most difficult posts we've created this whole trip. Besides the necessary dullness of ten and a half hours of daily sitting, to describe the minute shifts and intensely personal revelations experienced during such an experience would be both excruciatingly boring for the reader and far too revealing for us. What we will say is that we recommend that all of our friends and family consider taking this course (it's available worldwide and it's donation-based AKA nearly free) as the time at the center will certainly change your perspective and probably change your life. Be Happy: nuff' said.

Ok, so the first thing we did after Vipassana was eat KFC: sue us.

Since Vipassana we've been on the move hardcore. One night in Bangalore, four nights in Thiruvannamalai, four nights in Pondicherry... It's really nice to be on the road again considering how cooped up we were for the course and how our time in India is running very very short (at the time of this writing, our visas have about one week remaining). Tomorrow we will hop a bus to Chennai and grab dinner with an old friend from the Annapurna Circuit before catching the 30-hour train to Kolkata (commonly referred to as "Calcutta" by Westerners), where our respective flights will depart next week. During this last week+ we've become gurus by circumnavigating the Arunachala (a mountain that is a physical manifestation of Shiva), woke up at 4:45 to fight through a ornery line to buy Takkal (Hindi for, too-shortsighted to buy tickets early enough) train tickets, and accidentally led ourselves all the way through an underground, bat-filled sewer while looking for a Utopian village. Fun-filled crazy days to be sure, but we gotta soak it all up while we're still on the subcontinent. 

Gettin' Sadhu wit it in Thiruvannamalai

Our Thiruvanna Mama

Casper the Friendly Condom

Big Ol' Shiva Temple

Hampi Hampi, Joy Joy

Yes, Hampi is surprisingly awesome

Wow, just wow. Hampi is possibly the coolest place we’ve visited in our nearly 5 months on the subcontinent. Once home to the richest civilization in the history of India, Hampi is now the site of countless temples and century-old ruins and, even better, countless-er boulders that stretch out in every direction as far as the eye can see. The whole place vibrates with the incredible energy of long-lost empires and wave after wave of crunchy climbers flocking to the allure of the stone.

The little babu at our favorite restaurant with his favorite instruments

Very strange looking statues everywhere

We were on rocks like white on rice on paddies

Having received numerous tips from fellow travelers, the Masala Ballas were ahead of the game and headed straight for the other side of the river for accommodation upon arrival. Staying technically on a forest preserve (one day the police showed up for their recurring baksheesh [bribe] from the dozen+ guesthouses and restaurants that shouldn’t be), it was less than a thirty second walk from our door to a stretch of boulder field that we couldn’t begin to cover after almost two weeks of exploration. However, it was a great place to climb, and climb we did, waking up [relatively] early, hitting the rocks for yoga, tai ch’i and climbing, retreating during the heat of the afternoon only to return in the early evening. We’ll let the photos speak to the experience but it was incredible to have the world’s greatest climbing gym in our backyard.

With refreshed bodies and minds we now prepare to leave our beloved Hampi for Bangalore, site of our Vipassana course [dhamma.org if you’re interested] starting on the 19^th. The course will be a greater challenge than the experience at Kopan monastery in Kathmandu, but we feel prepared by the meditation of travel and our time in Hampi. We exit the Dhamma center on the 30^th; until then peace and love.

Waiting for the "ferry" with our dear dear dear Belgian friend, Leen

Swarms of monkeys galore

A peaceful place

A typical night...

ChicaGoans Goan Crazy in Goa

Nothing out of the ordinary...

Ahhh... Take a Deep Breath and be Jealous

Despite the fact that their celebrity was rising quicker than a striking Cobra in the big city of Bombay, the Masala Ballas decided it was time to take a break from the spotlight and head down to Goa; a stretch of seventy unbroken kilometers of beaches world-famous for its soft sands, Goan trance music and a relaxed atmosphere.

Holy Beach Cows

While it’s true that we fully indulged in the hedonistic lifestyle ubiquitous throughout Goa, we also managed to maintain our wanderlust, hitting up five Goan beaches in less than two weeks and spending time with dozens of new beach bum friends: we chilled with our Israeli friends in Anjuna, met up with the oh-so lovely Mindy and Anne of Chicago with Mindy’s sister Monica and her daughter Ruby for a couple days including Christmas breakfast, then jetted over to Candolim to meet up with the South African and German party girls from Bombay for Christmas night.

Max and some Punjabs

After perhaps too much debauchery in Candolim, including being welcomed into Club Fresh, the beach’s hottest club and for free nonetheless, we chose to mosey further south to Gokarna where there is a far less corporate/Hollywood vibe (rumor has it that Angelina Jolie was in Goa with us) and a far greater backpacker-friendly energy. We arrived in Om beach on the 30^th (the beach is shaped like an Om, the Sanskrit word that expressed the cosmic energy and the vibrations that it creates) and then spent New Year’s Eve with people from Sweden, Italy, Israel, Belgium, Austria, and so many Indians (it’s a big Hindi hang out around here). Since no one owns a reliable clock, we took it upon ourselves to decide when New Years was occurring and started a beach-wide countdown with our voluminous lungs culminating in large fireworks bursting all around us and cheers for miles around.

Ommmmmmmm......... beach

Beach Babas

Now things around here have calmed down quite a bit, it’s time for us to head inland and start preparing our bodies and minds for a Vipassana course due to start in the middle of January. We’ve chosen Hampi as our destination, a holy city that is considered the richest city in the history of India. Filled with ancient temples and boulder fields, Hampi should be the perfect place to spend a couple weeks and tune up a bit. And of course, we were thinking of all our friends and family during the holidays, so please accept a belated happy Chanukah, a merry Christmas and happy new years from us. It’s already turning out to be a fantastic 2011.

Woman with Fruit

Max Enjoys the View